t the best for making his own life and
that of others happy and comfortable in this world. Once having
chosen faith on this ground, the more absolute the form of faith,
the more potent the results; besides, the bishop has that desire of
domination in his nature, which the authorization of the Church
makes safer for him. To Gigadibs' objection that were his nature
nobler, he would not count this success, he replies he is as God
made him, and can but make the best of himself as he is. To the
objection that he addresses himself to grosser estimators than he
ought, he replies that all the world is interested in the fact that
a man of his sense and learning, too, still believes at this late
hour. He points out the impossibility of his following an ideal
like Napoleon's, for, conceding the merest chance that doubt may be
wrong, and judgment to follow this life, he would not dare to
slaughter men as Napoleon had for such slight ends. As for
Shakespeare's ideal, he can't write plays like his if he wanted to,
but he has realized things in his life which Shakespeare only
imagined, and which he presumes Shakespeare would not have scorned
to have realized in his life, judging from his fulfilled ambition to
be a gentleman of property at Stratford. He admits, however, that
enthusiasm in belief, such as Luther's, would be far preferable to
his own way of living, and after this, enthusiasm in unbelief, which
he might have if it were not for that plaguy chance that doubt may
be wrong. Gigadibs interposes that the risk is as great for cool
indifference as for bold doubt. Blougram disputes that point by
declaring that doubts prove faith, and that man's free will
preferring to have faith true to having doubt true tips the balance
in favor of faith, and shows that man's instinct or aspiration is
toward belief; that unquestioning belief, such as that of the Past,
has no moral effect on man, but faith which knows itself through
doubt is a moral spur. Thus the arguments from expediency,
instinct, and consciousness, all bear on the side of faith, and
convince the bishop that it is safer to keep his faith intact from
his doubts. He then proves that Gigadibs, with all his assumption
of superiority in his frankness of unbelief, is in about the same
position as himself, since the moral law which he follows has no
surer foundation than the religious law the bishop follows, both
founded upon instinct. The bishop closes as he began, with th